I’ve talked before about the changes in office technology during just the period covered by my career – thirty years, so far – but I was recently reminded that the edges of “technology” blur imperceptibly into the surrounding social context. The internal operations of any office (I’ll use ours as an example) are a set of processes that are subject to the same kind of modernization as engineering work itself. If the idea of operations as technology seems strange, keep in mind that the US Patent Office has awarded patents for office processes.
The reminder was that we recently had an intern start work, and the process that jumped out at me was on boarding a new person. A lot has not changed since I start in 1987: payroll and health insurance paperwork needs to be completed. The fact that some of that is now done via PDF and email rather than paper and mail makes it marginally easier, but not much different. Then we get to the computer…
In 1987, engineers in small firms generally didn’t get desktop computers. Now, we have one with CAD and analysis programs, internet connectivity (which may go without saying, but wasn’t yet standard in, say 1995), general office programs, and office management programs. The set-up includes creating eight accounts, each with a username and password: for the computer itself, for the server, for the billing program, for the group PIM software, for an online engineering analysis program, for the CAD program, for the library software, and for the internal communication program.
This is not a bad thing, as all of that computer power actually enables forms of work that were not previously possible, like entering timesheet information while away from the office, making field notes readily accessible to an entire project team, or group discussions that are not dependent on everyone being in a room for a meeting. It’s just surprising how fast and how thoroughly the changes have come.
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